Row, row, row your dragonboat
This review only covers the new content found on the paid side of the reward track – given the stuff on the free side is, well, free, there’s no reason not to aim for it. These are also all ‘flashback’ items from previous packs and have all been previously covered here.
Note: 3/4 of the items on the premium side have a Mundra affinity, not in-built enchantment. Given this Spirit is not attainable through normal means, they functionally have no Spirit affinity at time of writing. It’s very likely this is a bug and they are meant to have the Spirit built-in.
Blueprints
Not much to note from a crafting perspective. Zongzi Snack is about average for a low tier Meal item, although it costs slightly more resources to craft.
For hero gear, it’s marginally better than Shepherd’s Pie. Meals are decent but not amazing. If you need one, this will be a good choice for your levelling heroes.
DI-wise, don’t bother. Any Spell you may have unlocked is probably going to be better.
Dragonwood Bow is a pretty average mid-tier craft. Just like Zongzi Snack, it’s slightly more resource-heavy than comparable items, but not too bad.
Hero-wise, it’s a sidegrade to Jolly Ranger. It has slightly higher Attack and trades the HP for Defense. If your Bow-user needs a little more Defense, this is a good choice. Otherwise stick with Jolly Ranger, which also has that handy Christmas affinity.
For DI, it’s a mid-range option. Not the worst, but it’s better than a lot of other T10s.
From a crafting perspective
Four Wyrms Mace is a decent craft. It’s a Mace that uses metal, which is slightly unusual but not unheard of. Four Timewarped components, average 11 Essence that can be reduced to 9, all that normal stuff that we are coming to expect for a T15.
Being a Mace with no special sauce, it’s OK but not great for DI. Odds are pretty good that you already have a better option than it.
From a meta perspective
It’s a Mace. This is one of the weakest weapon types in the game. If you’re locked into Maces then this will be a good option since it’s the first premium item in the tier, but otherwise skip it.
From a crafting perspective
Dancing Lion is about on par with the other T15 Familiar, Rex. Unfortunately… that means it’s not a great craft. It’s got a hefty 15 base Essence cost that can be reduced to the ‘normal’ amount of 11 for T15 stuff. The Herb cost is pretty high at base but can be reduced decently. It only uses three Timewarped components which can be reduced to two via Mastery which is a plus, at least.
Familiars can’t be donated to the Airship so this does nothing for DI.
From a meta perspective
To immediately answer what might be your first question upon seeing this post, no. This thing unfortunately isn’t even remotely close to the BiS Familiar. To explain why, we need to talk about what makes a piece of equipment good for the Champions.
To sum it up in a single word: Scaling. Champions have great base stats compared to heroes. This is why they’re so strong in the early game that they can nearly solo content. However, this also means that their maximum potential caps out very quickly. Your heroes end up vastly outpacing Champions in terms of both damage and survivability. That second part is the major problem that Champions face in lategame content – “stay alive” is very difficult for them. They often have very low Defense and can struggle to come anywhere near relevant Defense / mitigation caps (even the Fighter Champions who are inherently a lot bulkier).
This means that the best Familiar is always going to be the highest tier option that has BOTH HP and Defense on it (currently the T14 Avatar with lower tier options being T12 Crushtacean, T9 Tyrant, and T7 Anubis). If a Familiar doesn’t have both stats, it’s not worth considering outside of extremely specific edge cases (maybe). Dancing Lion has Attack and Evasion on it. The Evasion means that the Spellcaster Champions don’t want to touch it because that is a dead stat for this archetype the majority of the time. Fighter Champions will appreciate the Evasion, but the Attack is mostly worthless to them. Rogue Champions can get decent use out of both stats, but the opportunity cost of not using an HP / Def Familiar is way too high.
Here’s an example of Yami with three different Familiars for comparison. You can see that the Avatar offers slightly less HP than the Rex, but it’s pretty close. More importantly, it’s giving her a huge boost to her Defense stat that would be enhanced further by her Aurasong and the Tarrasque spirit on it. This is a really big deal by itself due to how enemy damage is calculated (check out our Combat Compendium page if you want more info on the math side). The bonus Evasion from Dancing Lion helps a little bit, but nowhere near as much as consistently mitigating incoming hits. In exchange for losing Defense, both T15 Familiars have an Attack stat, which gives her 2,000 or so. Given endgame quests have multiple millions of HP, this is a drop in the bucket.
(Aurasong choice is a lot simpler and is mostly based on the effect of the Aura itself. If it doesn’t grant some combination of Attack, Defense, and HP to the party, it’s probably junk.)
Avatar Cosmetics
Decorations
Wallpaper
Summary
- All items are average to a little worse than existing options to craft. 3/4 of them are perfectly functional for normal usage but not amazing.
- No oar item in the Shopkeeper avatar Accessory slot? That’s a paddlin’.
Please don’t ask if the Familiar is new BiS. It is not.
Final Score
Dragonboat Pass: 5/10
One reply on “Contackt: Dragonboat Festival”
It may not be BiS, but I’m still very happy the lion exists just because it’s a Familiar that isn’t a miniature version of a quest boss, and I never thought one of those would happen.